All of the Law, None of the Order
by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: Charles Xavier is charming, young, and author of the most popular crime fiction series in print. Detective Erik Lehsherr is surly, young, and solver of the most heinous crimes in New York City. When a killer begins to mimic the murders in Charles' books, the writer is dragged into Erik's world. Together they may catch a killer. If they don't kill each other first. (Castle AU)
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: So the Story Goes on Down a Less Than Traveled Road**

 _ **Monday, 3:05 am**_

Detective Erik Lehnsherr was awake and reaching for the phone before the first ring ended. He threw out his senses as he sat up, the smooth glass of the smartphone's touch screen already pressed against his ear, his brain swiftly and smoothly cataloguing every piece of metal in his apartment as he barked into the speaker.

"Lehnsherr. What is it?"

He heard the muffled scramble on the other end of the line that said whoever had called had not anticipated him picking up quite so quickly.

"Ah, hey boss," Sean said uneasily, "Didn't really expect-"

"Who's dead; where and how?" Erik rattled off the questions rapid-fire, not pausing to allow Cassidy to collect himself. With a curt twitch of his fingers Erik called his belt, his gun (holstered, safety on), his badge and ammo to his side. A deeper twist of his mind found his trousers slinking across the floor towards him, drawn by the zipper.

"Caucasian female, early twenties, no immediately apparent physical mutations, although there could be something…" Sean trailed off, obviously uncomfortable.

"Spit it out, Cassidy," Erik growled, halfway dressed already and not in the mood to play games.

"She's sort of…you're just gonna have to see this one yourself," Sean hedged.

Erik grit his teeth and reminded himself that one did not throw one's subordinates off of buildings if one wanted to remain employed. "Text me directions, I'll be there," he finally said when the silence had dragged on just long enough to make Sean nervous but not long enough that the kid hung up. Kid. Hah. He was only a few years younger than Erik. Erik reminded himself that Sean's age did not seem to hinder the man in acting like a teenager.

"Will do, boss," Sean said, trying and failing to hide the relief in his voice that Erik hadn't chewed him out.

Erik hung up and went searching for a clean dress shirt.

…

 _ **Monday, 1:04 pm**_

"Charles!" Oh dear, Raven sounded irritated. A brief touch to her mind revealed a hornet's nest of aggravation and fond exasperation.

"Charles!" She was getting closer now, her chaotic thoughts growing louder with her footfalls as she stormed across the living room.

" _Charles!_ " And there she was, slamming open the door to his study, glaring down at him, her eyes reduced down to liquid gold slits in her blue face as she glowered at him.

"Ah, hello Raven."

"Don't _hello Raven_ me, Charles."

"Would you like me to be rude to you? That can be arranged, but I think it would be dreadfully unpleasant for everyone involved," he said absently, attention already drifting away from his sister and the imposing figure she cut in the doorway to his office.

Well, judging by the spike of irritation she flung in his general direction, she didn't like that much. " _Charles,"_ she said, voice shivering in a way that told him very clearly just how hard she was working to keep her tone level.

"It isn't as bad as you think it is, Raven," he responded blithely, fingers skating across the surface of his iPad, privately very glad there was a large, heavy antique desk between him and his irate sister at this particular moment.

"How bad do you think I think it is, exactly?" She had planted both palms flat on the desk and was leaning into his space, face turning a distinctly purple tint as her blue skin flushed with anger.

Charles finally bothered to look up, "Moderately bad?" he offered, trying to levity, and, judging by the outraged turmoil currently curdling in Raven's mind, failing spectacularly.

"OUR NEIGHBOR CALLED THE POLICE; YOU WERE ARRESTED, CHARLES!" She snapped, her own wild thoughts betraying the rush of worry that managed to seep into her memories of that moment, getting that phone call.

"I wasn't arrested," Charles pointed out, setting aside the iPad (and a particularly engaging round of Words with Friends) and resting his hands atop hers, "merely…detained."

" _Charles_ ," the fond exasperation was winning, already he could see her posture sagging beneath the sharp white pantsuit she wore when she particularly wanted to impress someone (she had an interview today, he remembered, he must ask her about it later, when she was less irate) her beautiful face already folding into a smile, "our 94-year-old neighbor called the police because it, I quote, 'sounded like someone was being murdered' in our apartment."

Charles found himself indulging in his own spike of irritation at that, huffing a sigh that did nothing to soothe Raven's ruffled feathers (if you pardon the turn of phrase). "Those sounds weren't anything like murder screams."

"CHARLES!"

"If you must know," he continued, not slowing down to allow her a longer fit of outrage, "I was playing several films about insane asylums at once, trying to research ambiance. The whole thing with Mrs. Smith and the police was really a very silly misunderstanding." He paused and couldn't help but add, "And those really weren't anything like murder screams. Insane asylum screams sound completely different."

"Charles," Raven sighed, plopping into the leather chair in front of his desk. He relinquished his hold on her hands with grace; fingers already itching to get back to his round of Words with Friends, "Seek help."

"No thank you," he said lightly, a smile that he _knew_ people found completely adorable fixed on his face.

"You aren't even working on a project right now," Raven grumbled, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet underneath her until she sat curled in the chair, elbow planted firmly on the armrest, cheek propped on her cupped hand.

Charles looked back up at her, indignant, "I'm working on something!"

She gave him a flat look, "No, you're not, you're sitting around in raggedy corduroys and one of the world's ugliest sweaters, playing Words with Friends on my iPad just like you've been for the past five weeks. Only now apparently you've added 'scaring the shit out of our geriatric neighbors' to your list of writer's-block-related pursuits."

"I'm trying to find inspiration," Charles defended, although the claim sounded weak even to his own ears. A quick brush against Raven's mind, and really, even the most cursory of glances at her face, revealed how pathetic it sounded to her too.

"Bullshit," she pointed out, not unkindly, "You finished your bestselling, award-winning, every-fucking-person-on-the-subway-has-a-copy series and now you don't know what to do with your life."

Charles felt his mouth twist and his spirits sink. Clearly there was no fooling Raven. She had known him too long and too well. Best go with the honest approach. "You're right, of course," he said, trying to keep his tone light an only partially succeeding, "Now that everything's all wrapped up…where do I go from here?"

"Write more sequels," she suggested flatly, "They certainly brought in the big bucks last time."

Last time he was shocked enough that people not only liked, nay, _loved_ his book enough to _want_ sequels he hadn't really thought it through before he was already pounding out books two and three. Now, well, things were different.

He gave her a helpless little shrug, "There's a reason I killed off my main character. He just wasn't going anywhere. It got boring."

"It got boring? Seriously?"

"It did," and no, he did not sound defensive at all, thank you.

"How hard can it be to just resurrect him somehow and send him off on adventures all over again?"

"Very, very hard, Raven," Charles sighed, trying not to let his exasperation and general frustration with his brain's inability to produce anything more than eloquent than a handful of clever tweets and the occasional scathing review the past few weeks overflow into this conversation. Raven didn't deserve him snapping at her. She was just trying to help. Although, a small, mulish corner of his mind reminded him, _he_ did not meddle in _her_ artistic process nearly as much as she tried to futz with his. "I'm done with this character, I'm done with this series; _there is nothing more to write._ When you're onstage don't you ever just realize that there are no more lines to say? Your big, dramatic monologue's done and now it's time to move on to Act 2?"

Raven gave him a look that spoke volumes.

"And I suppose I should now thank you for not criticizing my obvious complete lack of theatre know-how."

She just stared at him.

He stared back.

Her eyes narrowed, "No mind-reading, that's cheating."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said blithely, attention once again drifting back to the iPad.

She sighed, "Honestly, at this point, I'm not all that clear where this conversation was going."

He hummed absently.

"Charles."

"What?"

"I don't know, _do something._ You're making me sad watching you drift around in a haze all the time."

"I can't just magic away writer's block, Raven. It's bad enough having Logan breathing down my neck, I don't need you too."

Logan. His agent. Who would not hesitate to skin him alive if he flaked out on the next contract. Charles could feel a headache brewing behind his eyes. He pressed his fingertips against his closed eyelids and tried not to think.

Raven sighed and Charles suddenly felt the cool pressure of her fingers sliding around his wrists and giving them a gentle squeeze. "You'll figure something out, you always do."

"Always?" he said mock-skeptically and she laughed.

"You're really going to make me wax poetic about my brilliant, wonderful brother and his brilliant, wonderful books?"

"No," Charles admitted ruefully. "Although a little poetic wouldn't hurt. I need positive reinforcement too, you know."

Raven laughed and let go, flicking him in the center of his forehead and snickering when his eyes flew open and he winced comically.

"Was that necessary?" he whined.

"Yes. You don't need me to coddle you, you need to get working." She stood up, leveling a finger in his general direction, turning to leave, "And stop scaring the neighbors. No more getting arrested either."

Charles threw her an exaggerated wince, "I believe those days are behind me. I've gone respectable."

Raven's disdainful snort told him just what she thought of _that._ "I have an audition, I'll be back tonight. Try to stay out of trouble until then, okay?"

"I'll try, dearest."

"Thank you, brother darling," she threw back in an exaggerated accent he could only assume was intended to mock his own.

"Haha." He stuck out his tongue at her. Because he was a mature adult. "Are you going to the book launch party tonight?" he asked, not looking up from his tablet as Raven whirled past the door to his office, her red hair and blue skin sliding away to reveal her favorite neutral face: blonde hair, fair skin, blue eyes.

"No, remember I've got that fundraiser."

"Fine, abandon me at my hour of need," Charles said, tone playfully mournful; "You know without you by my side I spend the rest of the night as cougar-bait."

"You _like_ being cougar-bait," Raven pointed out acerbically, "It makes you feel young."

"I _am_ young!" Charles protested.

"Brother dear, thirty-three may be the new twenty but it certainly doesn't look it," she ducked out of the doorway, cackling, when he threw a slipper at her.

"I still get carded at restaurants, I'll have you know!"

Raven sighed and leaned back into the doorway, purse slung over her shoulder, pantsuit traded for more casual but no less trendy black fitted yoga pants and a light blue top that would look even more striking when she shifted back into her natural form. "Yes, you do. And before you get all excited about that, may I suggest you take your fifteen-year-old daughter to the party and use _her_ to shield you from the big, mean, scary cougar-ladies." She pulled a face at him and Charles debated the value of throwing the other slipper at her.

"Of course I'm taking Jean with me, and Ororo too, they've been so excited about it." Charles could feel his face automatically slipping into the indulgent smile he tended to wear whenever his daughters were brought up.

"Isn't seven a bit young for the book-launch crowd?" Raven asked, then winced, "God, I sound like you."

"Delightful, aren't I?" Charles said, face falling into a mischievous smile, "And Ororo had a lovely time at the last book launch."

Raven narrowed her eyes at him, " _And_ she provided you with an easy excuse to leave early."

Charles smiled, not bothering to pretend to be abashed. "Exactly."

Raven rolled her eyes. "You are incorrigible and I am leaving. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"Goodbye, Raven, break a leg at your audition."

"Thanks. Don't get arrested before I see you again."

"Scout's honor."

…

 _ **Monday, 5:43 pm**_

"What kind of a sick bastard does that to a person?" Sean said for the millionth time that day, gazing at the crime scene photos pinned to what the unit irreverently referred to as their 'murder board'.

"A really creative one," Armando observed dryly and Alex snorted.

"A really fucked-up one, more like."

Sean nodded his agreement. "What I don't get is this: it looks like a hate crime, right? Woman found blindfolded, naked, dead, covered in feathers with some gibberish spray-painted above her corpse. Except the gibberish is literally gibberish and the woman isn't a minority. She isn't even poor."

"These are all the same questions we've been asking for hours," Armando pointed out.

Alex grunted in agreement, "Anything from Lehnsherr?"

"Nope," Sean popped the 'p', "Crazy bastard just said he had an idea and rushed out of here."

"Hopefully it'll be something more useful than what we have here," Armando sighed, spinning slowly in his swivel chair. "What I want to know is why this seems so _familiar_?"

"Plotting murders in your sleep?" Sean asked jokingly.

"No, it just seems like I've seen this before," Armando mused, "No idea where."

"Well," a voice interrupted them and the trio turned to see the blue furry form of their resident medical examiner standing awkwardly in the doorway.

"'Sup, Beast?" Sean said, kicking his feet up on the desk and leaning back to look at the other man.

"That is not my name," Dr. Hank McCoy observed dryly.

"What've you got?" Alex demanded.

Hank shot him a look that screamed _'be patient, nitwit_ ,' but said nothing more than, "She's not a mutant. Preliminary tests came back negative and she has no signs of physical mutation."

"She could've been maimed by the killer," Alex pointed out.

"No signs of abuse whatsoever," Hank contradicted him.

"Except for the cut throat," Alex muttered darkly.

"Except for the cut throat. There are no defensive wounds, no bruises, no broken bones or unusual trauma. It would almost appear the killer was…gentle with her."

"That's fucked-up, man," Armando said, voice even and steady.

"I tend to think all forms of murder are bit 'fucked up'," Hank said dryly.

"So those weren't her feathers," Sean interjected, "You said no trauma so that means she didn't have wings. Or feathers."

"Wings," Armando mused before Hank could respond in the affirmative, "Her own wings…"

"Hey!" the metaphorical light bulb went off above Alex's head and he slapped the table, "That's just like-"

" _Pearls from the Gates,_ by C.F. Xavier," a harsh and familiar voice interrupted him, punctuating the ominous sentence with the thud of a box of books hitting the tabletop. Once again, everyone in the room pivoted to eyeball the new arrival.

Erik Lehnsherr stood in the doorway, a slightly soggy cardboard box of books crouched on the tabletop before him like a bad-tempered gargoyle, the detective wearing a dripping overcoat and a sharp-toothed shark smile.

"Is it raining outside?" Alex asked, the words shaken out of him by the surprise of Erik's sudden appearance.

"Yes," Erik said tersely.

"Hey! You ruined our big dramatic epiphany moment!" Sean griped but shut up quickly when Erik's steely grey-green gaze slid over to pin him down.

"I'm sure you will survive," Erik observed, the growl of his faded German accent giving the words more menace than he may have intended. Or perhaps just as much menace as he intended. Erik was a menacing guy.

"So, what's the deal with the books?" Sean, who still wasn't completely in the loop, asked.

Erik grunted and began rifling through the box in front of him, extracting a battered paperback and, without pause, hurling it at the junior detective's head. "Read sometime," Erik said flatly as Sean yelped and flailed, trying to catch the book.

Armando clicked his tongue, "Ah, I remember it now. _Pearls from the Gates_ is one of the less-popular ones."

"Yes," Erik acknowledged, "It was written before the wildly popular _Nathan Storm_ series and was re-released after the _Storm_ books had broken international sales records."

"Fascinating as the Wikipedia footnotes are," Alex said, avoiding Erik's cold gaze and willing those frigid eyes to look away from him, "What do we actually need to know about the book? All I remember is the mutant woman killed and buried in her own feathers."

"Yes," Erik said tersely, "A mutant woman is murdered and her wings are plucked. The killer leaves her body very carefully arranged."

"…shrouded in her own feathers, with graffiti in a dead language above her head," Armando finished the synopsis, "The book is actually fascinating on a psychological level. The woman's death, thought to be a hate crime, sparks a slew of increasingly brutal attacks on humans by mutants and on mutants by humans. Eventually you learn her death wasn't a random act of violence but actually a calculated assault on the neighborhood as a whole, part of a bizarre and terrifying social experiment by a psychology professor who wanted to test what sub-communities within the larger community might do should they be presented with specific stimuli. Like the Stanford prison experiment but on a larger scale."

"And _fictional_ ," Alex said firmly, "Really, really _fictional._ "

"Not anymore," Erik said tersely, "Someone's imitated it."

"Not exactly," Hank pointed out, "Our victim's not a mutant. Those aren't her feathers."

A normal person would have pursed his lips or furrowed his brows. Erik just sort of stared harder. "Read the book. I'm bringing the author in."

"Can we get him to sign something? Because I'm pretty sure something like that'd sell really well on eBay."

"The only thing he's signing is a confession," Erik snarled and stalked out with a whirl of wet overcoat.

"He's fucking terrifying," Alex observed into the silence. The others grumbled their agreement.

Meanwhile, Sean let out a shriek that made the glass in the windows shiver disturbingly. When the rest of the unit glared at him he shrugged vaguely, and waved the paperback in a general sort of gesture. "This book is scary, man."

…

 **Monday, 6:27 pm**

"Nice party, Dad," Jean said, looking up from her homework long enough to smile at a harried-looking Charles. He collapsed into a barstool beside her and took a healthy swig from her ginger ale, making a face when he realized what it was.

"Who let you have _that_?" he complained, "It's atrocious."

Jean laughed, "It's ginger ale, Dad. I think it'd be a problem if they were letting me have anything else."

"It's disgusting," Charles grumbled, propping his elbows up on the bar and scrubbing his face through his hands, making his bangs stick up in wild disarray.

Jean laughed and took a long gulp, "More for me, then."

"Can I have some of your big-girl drink?" Ororo chirped, looking up from her coloring long enough to send Jean a pleading look. She noticed Charles almost as an afterthought, head bobbing adorably, white curls flying every which way, "Hi Daddy!"

"Hi Ororo, don't you have your own big-girl drink?" Charles asked gently.

Ororo pursed her lips, "But it's not the _same_."

"Yes, it is," Jean explained patiently. When Ororo pouted at her, Jean sighed, and caved. "Alright, here's a deal. I give you a sip of my drink and you give me a sip of ours. That way it's a trade."

Ororo's little face lit up with a brilliant smile and she nodded eagerly. They traded sips quickly, just enough time for Charles to order his own, less-innocent beverage.

"So, Dad," Jean turned back to him, Ororo content for now to keep scribbling in her coloring book, "Why aren't you out schmoozing and making nice with all the scary ladies who want to take you home and do nasty things to you?"

Charles pulled a face, "I'm so sorry, I should have left you at home, dear. Hearing all that background chatter from a million unguarded minds…"

Jean laughed, "It's not that bad, Dad. You do just fine; so do I."

Charles gave her a look, "You haven't had the decades of experience I have."

Jean's face softened and she smiled, "I'm fine."

"You'll let me know the minute you get a headache?"

"The exact minute."

"Best telepathic daughter I could have asked for."

"But I'm the best stormy daughter you could have asked for, right?" Ororo chimed in. Charles laughed despite himself.

"Of course, Ro. The very best."

The little girl seemed pleased with that, a few cheery snowflakes fluttering around them before dissipating in the hot press of the crowded terrace.

"So, Dad." Jean twirled her pencil nimbly between her fingers and watched him with delicately arched eyebrows, "Any ideas for your next book?"

Charles sighed and grimaced, "That _is_ the million dollar question at the moment, isn't it, darling? 'What will the great C.F. Xavier do next?' You and the literary world are all dying to know."

"Except for the hipsters," Jean managed to say with a straight face, although her could see the twinkle in her green eyes, "You know they're above that sort of thing."

"Ah, wrong," he held up a teasing finger, "My _Storm_ series has become so very mainstream they're actively seeking out my older works and reading _those. Pearls from the Gates_ has become delightfully counter-culture."

Jean pulled a face, "Ew, that's the one with the mutilations, isn't it? I didn't like that one."

Charles sighed, "I don't think you're quite old enough to understand the subtle nuance of metaphor at play in that book just yet." He pulled a wry face, "…And the mutilations _are_ a bit excessive, in hindsight."

"Good to hear," a deep voice interjected behind him.

Startled, Charles reflexively reached out to brush the mind attached to the rather distinctive accent…and found himself slapped away with a brisk mental swat. Blinking and befuddled, Charles looked up to see a tall Germanic man with really _fantastic_ bone structure glowering down at him. The glower only intensified when Charles mentally reached out again, keeping the touch of his thoughts at a cordial distance.

"Stop that," the German snapped again, glare intensifying and Charles got a brief flash of _'fucking telepaths, no boundaries…entitled bastard…blue eyes…not threatening…suspicious…baby face…no weapons…'_ before all other surface thoughts were subsumed by a resounding blast of _'GET OUT OF MY HEAD'_ that left Charles' ears ringing. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Jean wince as she struggled to pull her shields back up. Charles tried to drown out the sick rush of guilt in his core, with (completely justified) anger, and turned back to their visitor.

"You don't need to broadcast nearly that loudly, my friend, we can hear you quite well, thank you," Charles said tightly, tone clipped and frigidly ironic on the words 'my friend'.

The German's face didn't so much register surprise as shift the tiniest bit, as if the man's internal algorithms had to readjust to this new bit of data. "Stay out of my head," he said; the statement thudding into the conversation like a blunt object to the skull.

"Yes, you made that very clear," Charles said acidly, "Who are you and what, pray tell, do you want with us?"

"Are you C.F. Xavier?"

"My birth certificate seems to think so," Charles tried for levity but the words just sounded sharp-edged and weary to him.

"You'll have to come with me."

"Really?"

The man blinked. Apparently men that scary were not used to being questioned. When in doubt, his default setting appeared to be 'vaguely menacing and somewhat monosyllabic'. "Yes. Really."

"Why? This party is rather lovely; my daughters seem to be having a good time. Right, girls?" He glanced over his shoulder at the two of them, arching his eyebrows at Jean in a way that clearly screamed 'back me up or bail me out'.

Jean deigned to glance up from her textbook long enough to flatly say, "Delightful."

Charles pulled a face at her. _'Some wingwoman you are,'_ he mouthed at her and she rolled her eyes.

Ororo, clearly missing all of these delicate social cues, stood on her bar stool, craning her neck to see around her father and sister, eyeballing the stranger curiously. "Are you German? You talk funny. Not bad. Funny. Daddy talks funny, but different-funny. Like some of the people on TV. Have you ever been on TV? You're very boy-pretty. You could be on TV. There's a different word for boy-pretty but I can't remember it. I think it's hand-some…Yeah! I don't know what hands have to do with being pretty but Daddy says it's a real word and that's what it means so I believe him because Daddy knows everything. Except for how to cook. Aunt Raven says he burns water but Daddy says that's impossible because you put fires _out_ with water. Anyway, you've got some hands and you're pretty so I think that makes you handsome. So, have you been on TV or haven't you?"

Charles took a brief moment to cackle internally at the stymied expression on the stranger's face. A few microscopic facial spasms later, the man managed to say, "No, I've never been on TV."

"Oh," Ororo looked disappointed. It was ridiculously cute. The stranger looked like his face wasn't sure what to do and had just frozen midway to nothing like a browser that wouldn't load. It was almost endearing.

Unfortunately, then the man had to go and _talk_ again and that ruined that, didn't it?

"My name is Detective Erik Lehnsherr, and we have some questions for you about," he paused, struggling for a child-friendly phrase; Charles the pulse of confusion just beneath the surface of the tidily ordered thoughts of the man, _Erik's_ , conscious mind.

Yes, he knew he mustn't pry. But he was curious, and the man just insisted on projecting bloody _everywhere._

"Has there been an incident, Detective?" Charles asked sweetly, offering Erik both an olive branch and an easy out.

The man seized on it with thinly veiled relief. "Yes. There has been an _incident_. You'll be coming with me." Almost as an afterthought, he flashed his badge. As if Charles might think he was kidding.

Then again, were Charles a bit drunker, he very well might have chalked this up to a prank in bad taste from one of his more… _intense_ fans. Or Raven. She was mischievous enough for this. But Erik didn't look the type to aide and abet in sisterly pranks. And that badge looked very real.

"Very well, let me call a friend of mine."

"You don't get your one phone call until you're officially arrested." Was that a joke? Erik was smiling, but he smiled like an extra from _Jaws_ so it was a bit hard to tell.

"Well, my children need a ride home and if I'm going to be _detained,_ I'd rather be secure in the knowledge that my fifteen-year-old and my seven-year-old aren't braving the subway alone at night."

"Fine."

Charles blinked. He hadn't expected Erik to agree quite so easily.

Erik's glower, which, aside from the shark-face smile, seemed to be one of his very limited supply of expressions, intensified. "Make your call."

"Very well." Charles shot him a sunny smile just to irk him. Erik's right eyebrow twitched. Success.

Moira picked up on the second ring. Lovely woman, Moira.

"Moira, darling," Charles tried his best to sound nonchalant but was keenly aware of the fact that he probably just came off as strained, "I hate to drag you away from whatever you're doing but I could really use a favor. Well, you see, I've been detained by the police and I really, desperately need someone to pick up Jean and Ororo from the book-launch party…"

 **Author's Note: Welcome to my new fic! This was an idea that wouldn't leave me alone for the past week so finally I just decided to write it out and here we are. I'm going to try to keep updates regular, but no promises. I'll be updating "Discount Angels" (one of my** _ **Supernatural**_ **fics) regularly around the same time so updates can be a little delayed, I apologize in advance.**

 **Anywho, I hope you liked chapter one of my new little project! If you have a bit of time, please do leave a review. I always appreciate hearing from people; reviews make my day.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Sometimes I Say Things I Wish I Could Take Back – the Most Crucial Thing I Lack is Tact**

 _ **Monday, 8:53 pm**_

"Fifty bucks says Lehnsherr kills him."

"Dude, Erik's married to the law; he's not going to cheat on her for some writer."

"Fine, fifty bucks says Lehnsherr pulls his gun at least once."

"No way."

"Why not?"

"I don't do sucker bets."

"Guys? Don't you have something better to do?" Armando's smooth voice cut through Alex and Sean's chatter, making the other two start guiltily before spinning their swivel chairs back around to face the table, away from the monitor and the direct video feed from the interview room.

Alex kicked Sean's chair, pulling a face when the other man just rolled away from him, "Come on, fifty bucks on something."

"No sucker bets;" Sean declared again, emphasizing his point with a few forceful jabs at the air with his pen.

" _Fine_ ," Alex rolled his eyes and flopped back in his own chair, balancing his own pen on his upper lip and whining when it fell off.

Aramando gave him a bland look and Alex grumbled some more, rocking forward to rest his folded arms on the tabletop and flopping his head down until his forehead sat, cushioned on the pillow of his forearms. "I want to go _home_ ," he groaned at the table, "I'm tired, I'm fucking _hungry_ and we're getting nowhere with this."

Armando, whose eyelids were beginning to droop tellingly, despite his valiant attempts to avoid the appearance of snoozing on the job, nodded sympathetically.

"Eh, you know how things are," Sean sighed, "No one goes home until Lehnsherr says so and if Lehnsherr's not saying so no home's going."

"Dude, that doesn't even make any sense. Get some _sleep_. Overtime is not worth this shit," Alex yawned, "We've been here since 3am."

"Hey, guys, I think Lehnsherr's gonna blow a fuse. A literal fuse," Armando pointed out drowsily. From his spot on the table, he could easily see the monitor and the live-feed of the interview room. A live feed that had gotten distinctly staticky.

"Shit," Alex and Sean groaned together.

"Somebody send in Hank!" Sean sighed, "He's the only one who won't make Lehnsherr madder."

"Hank went home," Alex reminded him, "Lucky bastard. Rock-paper-scissors for who has to go tell our fearless leader to calm the fuck down before he breaks something and they take it out of our budget?"

"Fuck, I'm gonna lose and die," Sean sighed, but held up his fist anyway.

 _ **Monday, 8:39 pm**_

"I don't know why I'm here," Charles said for what felt like the millionth time since he'd been whisked away by law enforcement, "But this is beginning to feel very much like a scene from _The Pillowman_ and I never liked that play's ending."

Erik glared. Harder. Charles hadn't thought the other man _could_ glare harder, but here he was, proving him wrong. " _The Pillowman_?" he asked, faded German accent laced with deadly levels of irritation.

"A deeply troubling play in which a writer is falsely accused of murder by a totalitarian government after a serial killer imitates some of the fictional killings in his stories."

Erik just stared at him like he was actively trying to unravel Charles' brain, untangle every nerve and try to make sense of what that left him with. Or perhaps Erik just didn't have a response to that particular bit of information. That was always a possibility.

Charles resisted the urge to reach out to the mind sitting across the table from him. Erik's brain had been so…interesting. Bright and sharp and precise, fascinating in the extreme. But Charles quelled the urge to invade the other man's privacy, instead giving him a weak smile and a half-hearted shrug, "The play ends with the writer exonerated."

"But you didn't like the ending," Erik's tone was somehow both flat and sharp, like the keen edge of a knife that has finally found something to cut.

Charles shook his head, "The writer is executed anyway. He dies believing that the government is going to burn his stories and that he has made no difference; that his legacy dies with him. It's very tragic in an ironic sort of way."

"Ironic?" a single raised eyebrow. Erik was getting drawn into to the conversation despite himself; Charles could sense the ripple of interest under the other man's surface thoughts.

"One of the officers who interrogated him, the one who tortured him, actually, saves his stories. Locks them up and hides them for fifty years, despite orders to destroy them. It's such a reversal…you learn, through the course of the play, that the two men aren't too terribly different, but life has put them in such a place that those tiny differences are enflamed until they consume them. Really, no one is saved at the end of the day; the only things that survive are those stories. Words endure where the human spirit does not. It's sad," Charles gave a weak chuckle, "And while I don't think you're likely to hook me up to a battery and electrocute me until I give you the answers you want, I really am not fond of the _Pillowman_ -esque turn this evening has taken."

Erik stared at him like he was a math problem the calculator kept insisting had no solution. Charles could almost imagine the pixelated font on a TI-84's screen: error, error, error. Finally, Erik spoke, "What the fuck?"

Charles shrugged, "It's a very strange play. Look it up some time."

Erik didn't blink. A normal person would have blinked. Erik just stared, incredulity giving way to annoyance, "Are you taking this seriously?"

Charles frowned at him, "Yes? Is there something I should be doing instead? Should I be more scared? I'm not, not really; a little irritated and confused, yes, but unless you really are going to hook me up to a battery, I'm really can't muster up much fear, my friend."

Erik gave him a cold look, "We are not friends."

"Oh, sorry then."

An exasperated huff was all he got in return for his apology, "You understand you're under investigation?"

"Is this about this morning? Because I thought that was all straightened out."

Erik gave him a dark look, " _No_ , although we are taking this morning's disturbance into consideration, as well as your…colorful track record."

Charles huffed, "Steal a horse once and it follows you for the rest of your life, I swear."

Erik was grinding his teeth; Charles could hear it. "We are not here to discuss your history of equine thievery."

" 'History' seems a little harsh, doesn't it?" Charles offered, "I mean, really, I was home from uni for Christmas break over a decade ago, got a bit tipsy with my sister and her friends-"

"And stole a police horse."

"It followed me home, more like."

"Would you _shut up_?" Erik snapped, "A woman is _dead_ and you're chattering about horses!"

"You started it," Charles said, a little defensively, fully aware that he sounded just like his youngest daughter and not quite sure how to stop it.

The metal table between them rattled ominously. "Is that an earthquake-?" Charles began, before the proverbial light bulb went on over his head, "Is that _you_? How marvelous!"

Erik glared and the lights flickered once before both they and the table stilled. Charles felt the pressure of the other man's forced self-control at the edge of his thoughts and fought the urge to shove the oppressive feeling away. " _Mr._ _Xavier_ ," the detective grit out, "Recently a woman by the name of Angelina McPhearson was found dead in her apartment. Her body was arranged in such a way that clearly suggests whoever did it was either an avid fan of your books…or their author. Can you account for your whereabouts last night, between 8 and 11 pm?"

"At home," Charles said immediately, not having to think about it. Ororo had had a sleepover so Raven had taken Jean out for some girl-time, leaving Charles ostensibly to 'work' on his 'newest project'. Really, he'd just drunk too much wine, deleted the handful of pages he'd managed to throw together that morning after an hour trying to salvage them, had a short, tense conversation with Logan that was mostly his editor grouching at him, and ended the night playing chess on his iPad until beating the computer program got tiresome and he went to bed.

"Can anyone verify that?" Erik asked and Charles choked back the hysterical giggle that had begun to build in the back of his throat. This was just like a police procedural. He felt like he was in the middle of a tv show, the director just hadn't call 'cut' yet.

"I spoke to my editor, Logan, at Howllet Books, for a bit around 9. Unfortunately, my sister and daughters, who live with me, were out that night."

Erik narrowed his eyes at him and Charles stubbornly refused to cringe.

"I played chess on my iPad for several hours," Charles offered, "A log of that time should show up on its history."

Erik gave him a flat, annoyed look, "So your alibi is an iPad chess program?"

Charles' own irritation flared so hot and fast he didn't both to tamp it down, "I didn't realize that I'd need an alibi last night! Otherwise I would have gone to greater lengths to fabricate one! How was I supposed to know this would happen?"

Erik didn't dignify that with a response. "Your records say you're a telepath."

Charles waved a hand, "My records, the tabloids, nearly every interview I've ever given; it's very public knowledge, Detective."

Erik gave him a narrow-eyed look Charles didn't much like. "Have you ever used your abilities to suggest or coerce-"

" _No,_ " Charles snapped, well aware (in hindsight) that the speed of his reaction probably just made him look guiltier, but he couldn't quite choke back the sick tide of disgust the mere _thought_ of doing _that_ to someone else brought on. _You did something similar once_ , a traitorous voice murmured in the back of his mind and he did his level best to squash the sneaking whisper. _That was nothing like this. I've never forced anyone to do anything against their will; much less murder._

The traitor voice didn't say much but it still twisted in the back of his mind, unsatisfied. The past never was.

"I have _never_ forced my will on another person like that. I know you can't seem to quite wrap your head around this little fact, but _I do have rules,"_ Charles hissed the last few words, each consonant sharp and clipped, every vowel dripping venom.

Erik looked unimpressed, "Would they even know if you had?" he asked coldly and Charles resisted the urge to shudder because he _could_ , he could do that to someone and they would never know if he didn't want them to…and what kind of sick creature did Erik take him for… and yes, the man was just doing his job and his job apparently was to rattle Charles as much as possible, and bloody shodding _hell_ was it working.

"I would never-"

" _Prove it,"_ Erik snarled back, half out of his seat, a growled challenge that set the metal fixtures rattling around them.

Furious and feeling unexpectedly vulnerable, that vulnerability feeding into his fury and leaving him spitting mad in a way that wasn't quite familiar and yet not wholly unfamiliar, Charles threw open his mind. "Have a look around, why don't you?" he snapped, dragging a thread of Erik's consciousness in, callously submerging him in Charles' memories.

Erik fought him because Erik was the type to fight everything around him until something gave in. But this was Charles giving in, wasn't it? But that wasn't really it. This wasn't so much acquiescence as it was Charles throwing Erik's demands in his face and saying 'be careful what you wish for' in the meanest, nastiest way possible.

It was cruel; really, in it's own way.

But Erik met the challenge with a kind of furious grace; his own pride making him harder, push farther, ruthless in his quest for the truth.

And yet.

And yet Erik was so very…businesslike about it. Tidy. Professional and neat. He didn't rip through the memories so much as sort through them like pages in a book, delicately and precisely, careful not to tear the edges. He stayed within the specified time frame; he didn't invade anywhere else, restricting his perusal to the last 72 hours.

Charles appreciated that.

Erik exited his memories and Charles snapped his shields back up just in time to give the detective a light mental slap. He didn't wince. Charles felt a childish sort of dissatisfaction at that.

And then… dead silence.

Dead silence only broken when one of the junior detectives from outside the interrogation room, the ones they'd passed on the way in, cracked open the door and said "Boss…"

"What?" Erik snarled, jerking his eyes away from Charles and the sharp-edged silence that polluted the air around and in between them.

"You're shorting out the video feed. Can you…not?" The man was young, five, maybe closer to ten years Charles' junior, and he looked it; with a face that hadn't quite lost its baby softness and a mop of unruly red curls.

"Cassidy," Erik's tone was a warning.

Cassidy held up his hands, "Hey, if you kill me, Alex wins the betting pool and that would suck."

Erik blinked and Charles saw, for the first time, something that might have counted as a non-lethal expression on his angular face.

It passed quickly.

"Is that all?" Erik finally asked, ice in his voice.

"Yes-." Cassidy began but was interrupted by another voice.

"No! No, no, no, no."

"What, Summers?" Erik demanded.

"Another murder, boss, just got called in," another young man said, sticking his head through the door, over Cassidy's shoulder, "Down at the university pool. It's weird as shit too."

Cassidy groaned, "But I wanted to go home."

"And I want to solve this case," Erik said flatly, "I win, you lose. Let's go."

"Since I'm innocent, can I come too?" Charles asked, curiosity piqued. Despite the unpleasantness with Erik, this _was_ the most interesting thing that had happened to him in days. Probably weeks, really. Maybe even months, if he were being honest. Life always got so unbearably _dull_ after he finished a book, and the writers' block certainly hadn't helped.

"No," Erik snapped in response to his question, just as Summers and Cassidy both chimed in with "Sure," and "Yep."

"Two against one, Erik, it would appear I'm going to a crime scene," Charles pointed out lightly, already standing and gathering his coat.

"No," Erik said flatly.

Charles looked up through his hair as he scooped up his jacket, "Yes."

" _No_ ," Erik said a little more forcefully as Charles made his way over to the door, trying and failing to ignore the amused expressions on Erik's underlings' faces.

"Yes," Charles sing-songed blithely as she glided past Erik and into the hall.

" _No_ ," Erik said, following after him, voice stained with exasperation and a tiny bit of disbelief that Charles was just…ignoring him.

"Yes!" Charles called over his shoulder, not waiting for the detective to catch up.

Charles could hear Cassidy and Summers (Sean and Alex, the hum of their subconscious minds informed him), muttering as they trailed behind Erik, whose long legs and irritable stride ate up the hall as he charged after Charles.

"How long will they keep this up?" Sean murmured.

"Until Lehnsherr kills him and bullies us into hiding the body?" Alex offered.

Charles smirked. This was just so _interesting._ And Erik was so very _irritated._ It was a lovely feeling, really, the hum of the other man's sharp, focused mind. It felt clean somehow, in a way that their earlier shared anger hadn't been. That had been messy and dark. They'd been building towards something equally messy and dark. A part of Charles that he didn't want to acknowledge, not really, told him that had they kept going, kept struggling (immovable object meets unstoppable force, his brain supplied) they might have actually hurt each other. But now, something had shifted, they were on the same side and he was teasing and Erik was responding and this was almost…fun.

There was a kind of hope in that. Like the blank page before chapter one.

Charles liked it quite a bit.

…

 **Monday, 9:23pm**

"Don't touch that."

Charles shot him a dirty look, "I wasn't going to _touch_ her. Yes, _her_ , she may be dead, but she's still a person."

"Not anymore. Dead's dead," Alex said bluntly, "Although, seriously, boss, be a little more sensitive. The woman's dead and naked next to a pool full of red daisies in a public place. Not a great way to go."

Erik gave him a flat stare that had Alex ducking away from his icy gaze. "I get it, I get it, 'focus on the crime scene', geez."

Charles gave Erik a look and Erik tried to glare at him too and Charles just gave him an exasperated little smile and looked away. Erik didn't _get_ him. One second they're at each other's throats and then the telepath's dragging him into his memories and now they're here and writer's acting like they're what, friends? Erik didn't understand. And Erik did not like things he didn't understand.

And of course then Charles had to look at him, all sharp blue eyes that saw fucking _everything_ and it was almost enough to send Erik slinking back and away from him. From that clever smirk and bright gaze. It was equal parts endearing and unsettling and Erik wanted it to _stop_.

"This isn't from _Pearls_ ," Charles said and it took Erik's sleep-deprived brain and embarrassing number of seconds to catch up.

"The book."

"Yes," Charles affirmed, crouching down until he was almost level with the body, "It doesn't match any of the murders in that book."

"That book?" Erik asked, brain catching the word and latching on.

"You sure it couldn't just be different version of something in it?" Alex offered, "Like, the first murder wasn't exactly like the one in the book."

Charles didn't glare like Erik would have, he just smiled patiently, "I think I have a fairly clear understanding of what those murders involved, and no, this doesn't match any in that book."

" _That_ book," Erik parroted because fuck, he'd been awake since three am and it's getting late and he's not well rested enough for advanced sentence structure or even original words.

"No…" Charles murmured, looking perplexed, "This is from something I never published…"

Erik narrowed his eyes at him again, suspicions already stirring beneath the surface of his mind. What if the telepath had played him? They could do that, couldn't they? Make you think you saw things you didn't?

"The leaked manuscript!" Armando (who was apparently some sort of C.F Xavier savant) chimed in and Erik blinked.

Charles nodded, mouth a thin, unhappy line. "Yes." When Erik and Alex just stared at him he sighed and rocked back on his heels, looking up at them. "A few years ago I wrote a little mystery novella. However, it was stolen off of my computer by one of my sister's less scrupulous one-night stands and auctioned off online. Of course, once it got out there, someone posted the whole thing on the internet and it was all very public and very unfortunate." There was a bitter twist to Charles' mouth as he said that and Erik was forced to tamp down and unexpected surge of sympathy for the man. Erik understood what it was to have things that he once thought of as completely and irrevocably _his_ taken away from him.

"That is so Stephanie Meyers," Sean muttered.

"This murder," Charles' sighed, "Is very similar to the one in that novella."

"Well shit," Sean summed up everyone's thoughts pretty concisely. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth, "Murder didn't happen when Stephanie Meyers lost a manuscript."

Charles huffed, "I didn't _lose_ a manuscript. It was stolen." He hunched his shoulders a little sullenly, "And it wasn't about sparkly vampires."

"I was Team Jacob, personally," Sean said reflectively.

Erik wasn't sure what his face was doing, but judging by the fact that his teammates suddenly seemed less inclined to meet his eyes than usual, his eyes were probably on the 'killing intent' side of murderous.

"I don't want to be here, I don't want to be here, I don't want to be here," Hank rushed in, carrying his kit, muttering unhappily under his breath.

"I wanted you to be here earlier. Neither of us is getting what he wants," Erik said coldly, "Pathologist, meet body. Body, meet pathologist. Now, work."

Hank, who was already crouching down to the body's level, glanced over his shoulder briefly, brow furrowing quizzically.

"Not one word." Erik growled.

Hank's mouth opened, shut, opened again, seemed to forget how to produce sound, then shut.

"How exactly is he supposed to work if you won't let him speak?" Charles asked blandly, a too-clever glint in his eye.

"Shut up," Erik said oh-so-eloquently, before stalking off to talk to someone about something. He wasn't quite sure who the someone was or what the something might be either, but sticking around any longer might end in serious collateral damage (namely, one of his teammates or Charles getting thrown off a building). So, Erik retreated with little to no grace, but a good deal of homicidal panache.

Luckily for him and unluckily for the poor bastard who found the body, Erik caught sight of the kid immediately and made a beeline for him. "Mr. Rodriguez?"

The kid, who couldn't be more than 19, shuffled his feet nervously and clutched his pool gear tightly to his chest, "Yes?"

Erik gave him an unimpressed look and Rodriguez's toes curled uncomfortably in his flip flops. "Detective Erik Lehnsherr, I have some questions for you."

"About the body," the boy's head was bouncing up and down slightly, a nervous tick that made him look like a bobble head.

"Yes, about the body."

"The body in the pool."

"The body was _in_ the pool?" This was news to Erik. When he'd gotten here, the woman was splayed out on the deck like a forgotten pool floaty, "Why is the body no longer in the pool?" i.e, what idiot meddled with his crime scene?

"I, uh, fished her out. I thought she fell in, or was maybe doing some kind of weird performance art piece? Y'know, because she wasn't wearing a, uh, swim suit."

"We are extremely aware of her nudity, yes," Erik said flatly. Alex and Sean taken great pains to point this out in the most immature ways possible when they first arrived.

"And, y'know, the red daisies, aren't really, um, _normal_."

"Really." Erik bit back the rest of the sarcastic comment on the tip of his tongue. It took a great deal of willpower. He needed to go home and sleep. Or go home and 'relax' while manically pacing around his apartment, trying to make the pieces of these cases fit together in his head.

"Why were you at the pool, Mr. Rodriguez?" Erik asked.

"I'm on swim team," the boy's nerves made the statement into a question. Erik was losing patience with this conversation. "I come here to practice sometimes, late at night, when I'm stressed or just want to get in a workout without anyone else around."

"Walk me through tonight," Erik prompted, "I assume you had dinner?"

"Yeah? At like, six, maybe? Why is this important?"

"You've had a traumatic experience," Charles cut in before Erik's frayed patience could snap completely, "Seeing the body like that, in a place you typically think of as safe. It can be difficult to recall everything all at once when your personal sense of security has been violated like that. Detective Lehnsherr is giving you a place to start. What did you have for dinner?"

The bobble-head effect was back, but at least comprehension was beginning to dawn in Rodriguez's slightly panicked eyes. "Um, well, the dining hall kind of sucks, so pizza and, um, soup, they had a pretty good split pea today."

Charles nodded, blue eyes warm and thoughtful, striking just the right balance between inquisitive and understanding.

Erik stomped down the acid burn of irritation (seriously? Fucking writer thinks he's a cop now…) and focused on the witness' words as the kid staggered through his evening itinerary, tag-teaming with Charles to throw gentle questions at Rodriguez and keeping an eye on his team circling the corpse by the pool.

Finally, they got everything they could out of Rodriguez and sent him on his way with Erik's card.

"Well he didn't do it," Erik summed up.

Charles raised an eyebrow, "How do you know that?"

Erik gave him a flat look, "He didn't. It's obvious."

Charles was getting a confused and annoyed little crease between his eyebrows. Erik resisted the urge to reach over and smooth it out with his thumb. No, bad idea, completely inappropriate. Shut up, brain. Erik kept his hands firmly in his overcoat pockets.

"How do you _know_ that?" the telepath demanded.

Erik looked at him out of the corner of his eye, "The kid has the killing intent of a rabbit."

"And you just know that?" Charles was looking a little indignant, although Erik couldn't imagine why.

"Sure. Shouldn't you know it too? After all, you're the telepath."

Charles made an exasperated noise, "People's thoughts aren't nearly as linear as everyone, ironically, seems to think. They're mostly a jumble of feelings and whatever snippets of things are flickering through the top of the brain at the moment. For example, Hank is irritated at being dragged out here late at night, but he's also a little relieved he's here, with everyone, instead of alone at home, but he's also hungry and pondering what toppings are and aren't appropriate to put on pizza _and_ on top of all that, he's analyzing the body. And that's just the surface. So unless a person is thinking I AM GUILTY, PLEASE ARREST ME NOW as loudly as possible; no, I don't automatically know if someone's a bloody murderer!" Charles was a little flushed and even more indignant at this point. His hand gestures, which had been somewhat small and controlled, were all over the place and his dark hair was flopping in his eyes.

Erik stared at him just long enough for Charles to flush a shade deeper and give an embarrassed huff before responding to that little tirade. "You get more British when you're indignant."

"That's all you have to contribute?" Charles snapped.

Erik shrugged, "You didn't have to come to the crime scene."

Charles sighed, "Sorry, I'm not being fair. Or pleasant."

"Erik's never pleasant, trust us, it doesn't bother him," Armando pointed out blithely.

Erik glared at him.

"Case in point."

"Hank, body, speak," Erik turned his attention to the pathologist before he decided to risk contaminating the crime scene further and throw Armando into the pool.

"Working."

"Fine. Writer, novella, speak."

Charles gave him a dry look; "You get more monosyllabic when you're irritated."

"He's been awake since three am," Sean offered, "He's cranky."

Charles gave him a sympathetic look. Erik did not appreciate it.

"Very well. The murders in the novella are all centered on a book club. Members keep turning up dead; their murders always elaborate literary references. This is the Gatsby killing. You know, when Gatsby is shot, he's shot in his pool. The red daisies represent blood, anger, love, and Daisy, who is the impetuous for Gatsby's rise and fall."

"I want to know where the hell this sicko got red daisies," Alex muttered.

"It's not that hard to make daisies red," Charles pointed out, "Just put regular white daisies in water with red food coloring."

Erik narrowed his eyes at him.

Charles narrowed his eyes right back, "I have two daughters. Both of whom survived the first grade science fair because of this knowledge. I am not a deranged killer with a predilection for floral arrangement. Also I'm fairly certain the three other human beings I live with would have noticed if I doctored this many daisies. I'm certain my sister, at least, would have had a few choice comments on it."

"I didn't accuse you of anything," Erik pointed out deceptively mildly.

"I'm a telepath," Charles grumbled, "I know when you're lying."

"And that speech five minutes ago?" Erik said blandly.

Charles sighed, "It's complicated and you're hostile."

"Good enough." Erik nodded and turned back to Hank, "So, what are we looking at?"

"Impossible man," Charles muttered at his back and tried (unsuccessfully) to tamp down the buzz of excitement humming in his chest. He was at a _crime scene._ This was just so _fascinating._

 **Author's Note: If any of you read my Supernatural fic 'Discount Angels' you probably know the long (mildly ridiculous) story of why I haven't updated my more serious fics recently. The condensed version is that about a month ago I injured my dominant hand, then caught the flu and just wasn't able to work on anything other than fluff for awhile. But I'm healthy again and my injury's on the mend and I'm back to updating things. Yay! I'm happy to be back.**

 **The play Charles references,** _ **The Pillowman**_ **, does exist. It's very interesting and very dark. I'm not sure if I recommend it, per se, but it does make for some thought-provoking reading.**

 **A huge thank-you to everyone who read, favorited, followed, and commented on this fic so far! You're all wonderful!**

 **P.S The chapter title is from the song 'Bite My Tongue' by Reliant K. In my opinion, this song strongly embodies Erik's perspective on the mess that is communicating with Charles. Also, it's just a good song. :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Between the Sheets of Paper Lies My Truth**

 **Monday, 10:47 pm**

"Writer, go home."

"No, no, I want to help."

"Help how? You're not a trained investigator."

"I do have a phd, Erik."

"In _genetics_ , which is about as helpful as a spork."

"…Have you been googling me?"

"Don't call me Erik. And go home."

"And of course he stalks off dramatically. Of course. And I'm left talking to myself."

 **Monday, 11:23 pm**

"Xavier, out."

"Is that coffee?"

"I'm not sharing. Leave."

"Erik, I'm helping."

"Boss, he actually is helping."

" _How_?"

"I have a photographic memory. I'm very useful."

"At least get out of my desk chair."

 **Monday, 11:56 pm**

"Don't you have a home? People who want you to go back to it?"

"Yes."

"Why are you still here?"

"Because I am genuinely interested in helping assist the forces of good in the capture of a serial killer?"

"…You're researching your next book, aren't you?"

"You're a very suspicious man, Erik."

"You're technically still a suspect."

"Well, you know I didn't kill the first girl and I have an alibi for the second."

"A suspicious alibi."

"A book release party where several dozen people interacted with me is not a suspicious alibi."

"Hrmph."

"Go get yourself more coffee, you're grouchy."

 **Tuesday, 12:30am**

"I'm pretty sure Erik's part robot," Sean announced, spinning a pen between his fingers as he side-eyed the grim-faced machine that was his boss. Erik was pounding away at his computer keyboard like it had personally wronged him, compiling all the information they had thus far, checking and sending email, and whatever else it was that people like Erik did on computers.

Charles just shrugged, it was late and even he had begun to flag. While his interest in the case had yet to wane, his personal energy was sorely depleted. His bones were aching too. Nothing severe, but enough to make him reach for the ibuprofen.

Just as suddenly as his flurry of activity had begun, Erik stopped. For a second Charles found himself irrationally wondering if the other man had finally run out of manic energy and just…stopped. Like a flashlight that has run out of batteries. But no, there was Erik's mind, a tightly organized machine, everything turning and clicking together in perfect harmony, everything in place.

Erik paused and spun his office chair around to face Charles and the rest of the team, exiled to the table, who had been sorting through crime scene photos and Charles' books, making note of any points of correlation between the scenes described in the books and the scenes they'd witnessed. In one smooth motion, Erik completed his spin and rose to his feet. Despite the late hour and the fact that Erik had been awake and moving for almost 24 hours, he was just as sleek and dangerous-looking as ever. Charles refused to be intimidated.

"What do we have?" Erik asked without preamble.

"Three exhausted cops, one writer and not nearly enough coffee," Alex grumbled, ignoring the flat stare Erik aimed his way.

"We have noted several points of correlation between each crime and it's fictional counterparts," Armando stepped in before Erik's death-stare could finish off Alex.

"Counter _parts_?" Erik asked, picking up on the relevant information first, as usual.

"Yeah," Armando yawned, "You know how they're not perfect imitations of the murders in the books? Yeah, that's cuz they're plays on a lot of different stuff from a lot of different books."

Charles nodded, his mouth an unhappy little line, "Yes, unfortunately, the killer seems to have picked one fictional murder as a basic blueprint, for lack of a better word, and then…embellished using little references to other books or other things in the books."

Erik nodded, brows drawn together, machine of a mind clicking and turning as he processed it, "Do you have any stalkers?"

"You mean do I have any crazed fans willing to kill two women as some sort of sick homage to my work?"

Erik just stared at him.

Charles sighed, rubbing his forehead, "Quite possibly. I hadn't thought it likely when the killings just looked like half-baked imitations, you know, the killer making them like something from popular fiction to throw you lot off the trail, but with all these little references…"

"Or we could just be making connections that aren't there because we want there to be connections," Alex pointed out.

Erik gave him a flat look, "That was unusually astute, Summers."

Alex snorted, "Don't strain yourself praising me."

Erik raised a dangerous eyebrow. Alex rolled his eyes, unaffected.

"And that could be true," Armando said, "If this isn't a stalker or a crazy. But if it is an Xavier fanperson, then this could be them trying to be…cute, for lack of a better term."

" _Fanperson_?" Sean said into the silence.

Armando shrugged, "It seemed politically correct."

Erik very nearly rolled his eyes. Charles could feel the temptation loud and clear in the other man's skull, but he restrained himself and refocused.

"So this could mean nothing or it could be important?"

"Yeah, that's about it," Alex summed up.

Erik didn't sigh, but he did look like he was summoning patience from reserves he hadn't realized he'd had until now. "Would any of you care to hear what I've uncovered about our new victim while you were pursuing pulp fiction?"

"I _do not_ write pulp fiction," Charles protested. Erik just gave him an unimpressed look and Charles _did not_ stick his tongue out at him. See? He could be an adult, no matter what Raven said.

"Our new victim is Viola Dervish, 27, local, professional interior decorator. Not affiliated with the college in any way."

"Is she in the Missing Person's database?" Armando asked.

Erik shook his head, "No. A woman called the station earlier today to report her missing because she didn't show up for a consultation and wasn't answering her cell. But, as it the required 24 hours hadn't elapsed, Dervish couldn't be declared officially missing and the woman was told to call back if she didn't turn up."

"That's kind of jumping the gun, isn't it?" Armando mused, "Calling the police because your interior decorator doesn't show up for a consultation and isn't taking your calls? I mean, typically when that happens the decorator's just done with your shit and is cutting you loose."

Charles snorted, "Clearly you haven't spent much time with the wealthy and entitled. It would never occur to some of them that Dervish might not want their business. No, obviously something catastrophic must have happened and the police need to get involved _right this minute_."

"Well, in this case she was right. When the woman in the pool didn't match anyone on the Missing Persons list I looked up the 'missing' interior decorator and here she is," Erik said dryly.

Charles hummed uncertainly, "Why might she have been at the pool, though? She wasn't a student at the university, was she?"

"Not from what I could find."

"Could she have been killed elsewhere and deposited at the university pool?"

"Possibly."

"We really don't have much to go on here, do we, Boss?"

Erik shook his head, "Tomorrow I'll notify the family and see what connections we can find between Angelina McPhearson and Viola Dervish."

Charles hummed again.

"What, Xavier?"

"Oh, just I'm surprised her first name was 'Viola'. It doesn't really match the Gatsby scene, does it? One might expect something Shakespearean. And there is a Shakespeare-inspired crime scene in the novella the killer referenced."

"Why Shakespearean?" Sean asked.

"Oh, because the first victim's name was 'Angelina' and the whole setup; white feathers, dead languages, the sacrificial posture, it's drawn from one of my books, but ultimately it's very biblical in style. Not to mention the title of the novel the scene is partially lifted from, _Pearls from the Gates._ It's an allusion to the pearly gates, you understand, heaven's gate missing their pearls? And it's about a seemingly perfect community that's fallen into chaos and decay -." Charles flushed, "Sorry, I didn't mean to hit you over the head with literary symbolism. It's not really important, but here in the case, see, 'Angelina', 'angel'," he paused and waved his hands feebly as if that was the best he could do to explain the rest of it, "It's an allusion to the text."

"One about as understated as a truck, if that's what it is." Armando pointed out, "It's not exactly subtle, doesn't really fit the idea of the killer showing off his cleverness. Maybe the he did it on accident the first time or just decided to switch it up with the next one?"

"A murderer this meticulous doesn't 'switch it up'. Something's different here, with Viola. She shares a name with not only a character from the actual Shakespeare canon, but also with the female protagonist of the critically-acclaimed film _Shakespeare in Love._ Logically, she should have had a different scene, but didn't. There has to be a reason the Gatsby killing was chosen for her." Charles was dead certain. He stared at Erik as he said it, trying to impress the importance of his observations into the other man's skull. Of course, Charles really _could_ beam his thoughts directly to the detective's brain, but that was a gross violation of personal boundaries and would ruin the delicate almost-trust they'd developed.

Erik raised an eyebrow at Charles' intense expression. The detective was a puzzle. He seemed to spend the majority of his time in an almost meditative state of cool detachment, only allowing emotions to manifest as anger, irritation, or some permutation thereof. His mind was a tightly compartmentalized contraption powered by the sheer blunt force of his iron will. Charles wondered what else was there, below the surface, where other feelings might lurk.

But Charles was never very good at boundaries, as Raven delighted in reminding him.

Erik huffed out a sigh. "The rest of you, go home. You too, Xavier."

Well, half of that was unexpected.

"Boss, don't you want us here?" Alex asked, tone half belligerent, half concerned-despite-himself.

Erik glowered at him, "What have I ever said or done to indicate I enjoy your continued presence in my workplace?"

"Your sunny disposition and charming smile, clearly," Charles muttered, earning him a strangled chuckle from Armando and a high-five from Sean.

"Aw, Boss, you gotta let us keep the Professor, he's one of us," Sean laughed.

"No. No non-police personnel. And no writers."

"Seems a little discriminatory, Erik," Charles said, turning big innocent eyes on him "What if some of your officers have literary aspirations?"

The look Erik sent him would send Bigfoot running, "They can wait until they retire."

"Why are you sending us home, boss?" asked Armando, refocusing the conversation.

Erik scrubbed his hands over his face, "Because you're all exhausted and halfway to useless. I wouldn't trust any of you to drive a go-cart, much less a department vehicle. Nothing's open and no one's awake now, so we can't do any interviews, and Hank's not done with the body so we don't have his report. You have done all you can. Now it's time to go home, sleep, and get your well-rested asses back here at 8am. Understand?"

"I understand you keep excluding yourself from that to-do list, Boss," Armando said evenly.

"No shit."

"Boss."

"There's work to do."

"You just said there wasn't," Charles pointed out, "The logic behind your decision to stay has bigger holes in it than the plot of _Les Miserables_."

" _Les Mis_ was heart-wrenching and beautiful," Sean protested.

"Oh the play was a stunning feat of musical excellence, true. But it does strain the concept of willful suspension of disbelief a bit much."

"This is so nerdy and so not the point," Alex interrupted, "Boss, go home. Just go home."

Charles nodded, "Alex is right, Erik. I'm sure if you stay you're just going to troll the internet chasing down some of my more rabid fans and I'm fairly certain that's not actually your job. And even if it were, it's not the job for right now. Also, if you don't leave, I won't either and that could get very awkward very quickly." He finished it off with his most charming smile… which didn't get much out of Erik other than a slightly softer glare.

"Very well, Xavier."

Wait, what?

"Hey!" Alex yelped, " _We_ tell him to go home and he just looks homicidal, the _writer_ tells him to go home and he's just all 'very well'? What the hell?"

Erik looked at him and Alex shut up. "Are you done, Summers?" he asked in a deceptively mild tone. Alex nodded and Erik grinned like a shark.

"Any further comments?" he said brusquely, "No? Then leave. You too, Writer."

"Yes, well, charming talking to you too," Charles sighed good-naturedly.

"Go home, Xavier."

"Good night, Erik."

"Don't call me by my first name."

…

 **Tuesday, 1:44am**

Of course Charles' night couldn't be over when he staggered through his doorway after what was quite possibly the longest taxi ride of his life. No, Raven was on him in seconds, backing him into a corner in the entryway so he couldn't escape (or access the coat closet, which was a tad irritating) and demanding answers.

"So, Jean said tall, German, and handsome whisked you away from the party."

"Hello to you too, darling. And he was tall, German, and _law enforcement._ And there was no whisking. There was less-than-subtle intimidation and a dead body. No whisking, my dear."

"Yeah, no, doubling up on the endearments is not going to get you out of this, Charles."

"What is _this_ , exactly? Because it feels quite a bit like my second interrogation of the night and the first was not exactly pleasant."

Immediately Raven was on the alert, "They didn't hurt you, did they? Because we can sue, I'm very good at suing."

"No, darling, you're not, my lawyers are, and you know I don't like suing people."

" _Charles_ ," Raven huffed, "If you were harmed or threatened in any way…"

He sighed, reaching out and taking her flapping hands in his own, "It's fine, Raven. No, really, it is." He paused to think, "Well, the murders don't really fall under the umbrella of 'fine'. But we're working on that."

Raven was instantly tense again, " _Murders,_ Charles? Is that was you meant when you said dead body?"

"Of course, what other kinds of dead bodies are the police interested in?"

"What is going on?"

"If you let me out of this corner I'll hang up my coat, make us some tea and answer your questions, sound good?"

"Sounds good."

…

 **Tuesday, 3:05am**

Erik watched dispassionately as the clock ticked over to 3:05am. 24 hours. He'd been awake 24 hours. He could feel the past day pressing at the back of his eyes, filling them with imaginary sand, weighing him down. Exhaustion hummed through his muscles, his tendons, his bones and blood. A wicked sort of energy, the sort that helps as it hurts.

He rolled over to his other side, watching the slivers of light that slipped through his cheap blinds cut elaborate shapes on his walls. He closed his eyes. Opened them again. Closed, open. Closed, open. He wished it would start raining so he could listen to the rapid drum of water on the metal of the city, a watery song pitter-pattering over taxi-cab roofs, down street signs, through storm drains, instead of the thoughts churning through his brain. He stretched out his senses anyway, feeling the pulse of the city. He may not be able to pluck thoughts out of other people's heads like Charles, but Erik could feel the beating heart of the city anyway. And it wasn't the people. It was the things they created, the best and worst of them, monuments to pride, to money, to stupidity and splendor and efficiency.

(When Erik was a very small child, before he could lift cars and stop bullets with a twitch of a finger, he used to cry when he mother made him leave the subway. He'd loved the feel of it, before his abilities had really manifested enough for him to understand what was different about this tube of complex machinery hurtling through the darkness, why he felt like he belonged here even if it smelled strange and was always filthy.)

Erik let himself drift over the city, falling into a kind of trance as he hummed through the power lines, blinked through stop lights, roared through the engines of hundreds of cars, occasionally following one for a bit before sliding away. A whole city full of metal filled him up, fitting him into its' network.

Erik may not be able to sleep, but this was the next best thing.

 **Tuesday, 5:02am**

"I'm not bloody awake, Moira."

"Really? Because you sound remarkably functional, for a former inmate, Charles." The voice on the other end of the line was elegant, cultured, and completely uncompromising, "Care to explain last night?"

"Hngh."

"Charles. Charles. Don't fall asleep. Charles!"

"I told you I wasn't awake, darling," Charles assured her, prying his face off his (extremely inviting) pillow, "What do you need?"

"For my best friend to tell me why I get an abrupt phone call last night asking me to pick up his daughters at the book release party because he's been, quote, 'detained by the police.' End quote."

Yawning, realizing that this conversation was most likely going to thoroughly prevent him from getting any sleep any time in the foreseeable future, Charles half-crawled, half-rolled (and partially fell) out of be and shambled toward the kitchen with the vague idea of breakfast percolating the back of his mind. "Moira, if you want to talk about it why don't you meet me for coffee later? You know I detest phones."

Dead (and extremely confusing) silence on the other end of the line.

"Moira?" Charles asked tentatively, already going through the motions of filling and prepping the kettle. As a rule, Charles Xavier hated phones. Phone conversations were confusing; full of signals and subtext he had no hope of decoding without the background hum of a mind to go with the words. Frankly, it was creepy, like talking to a dead person, only the dead person talked back. Images of the body from last night rose up from one of the darker corners of his mind at the thought.

…And that had effectively killed his appetite.

"Moira?" he tried again.

"Sorry, Charles. I was thinking."

"Ah. Could you perhaps continue this conversation somewhere where I can feel you think? Because this is-"

"I know; I've heard the spiel. Phones are creepy, it's like talking to ghosts."

"…I was going to go with, 'uncomfortable' but you captured the essence of the thought."

"Okay, we can meet somewhere for coffee and you can tell me all about your latest illegal escapades." She said the last words with a kind of dry tolerance, like how one might talk about a beloved pet that shed white hairs all over a black fleece jacket.

"Thank you, darling."

"You're welcome, you insufferable man."

That brought an unexpected smile to the writer's face as he recalled another insufferable man from last night.

 **Tuesday, 6:47am**

The phone rang and Erik was on his feet before he was fully back in his body. He had a brief, disorienting moment where his consciousness was still stretched between his body and the network of metallic objects he'd psychically latched onto last night. His nerves seemed to vibrate in time with his cellphone's casing (a steel alloy he'd made himself. Heavy, but durable.) for a moment before he fully reclaimed his faculties, muting his abilities down to sane levels as he reached for his cell.

"Lehnsherr."

"Detective Lehnsherr, care to explain why you arrested my wife's best friend last night?" Sergeant Nick Fury drawled on the other end of the line.

"We didn't make an arrest last night."

"Bring anyone in for questioning?" That was not Nick Fury's patient voice. Erik wasn't sure Fury _had_ a patient voice, but he knew for a fact that that was not it.

"Yes. Charles Xavier."

"That is not what I wanted to hear."

"He's innocent."

"Now that's closer to what I wanted to hear. Not it, but I'll take it."

Erik chose to take the better part of valor and not ask what exactly Fury had wanted to hear. "Your wife is friends with Xavier?"

Fury sighed. Or maybe growled softly. Erik had no idea. He figured that was not the kind of question one asked one's superiors. " _Best_ friends. Since college. She was understandably _concerned_ when he called asking her to pick up his kids because someone's bringing him in for questioning."

A pause while Erik considered his options in the answer department. Finally he went with what was most likely to get him fired. Because Nick Fury appreciated candor. "If he had been guilty, what would you have done?"

"Chewed you out for letting him arrange to meet my wife for coffee this afternoon."

"Not particularly loyal to your friends, are you?"

"Not the murdering ones, no. And neither are you, you grumpy son-of-a-bitch."

Erik huffed what he was going to tell himself was not a laugh, "Is that it?" he asked bluntly.

"Sure, why not," Fury magnanimously agreed; pausing before adding his customary words of encouragement at the beginning of every case; "Don't fuck this up, Lehnsherr."

"I never have."

And Erik hung up first. Because not matter how soothing it was to lie tangled in the metallic embrace of the city for three hours, sleep it was not. He was tired, grumpy, and feeling more than a little petty.

Time for coffee.

 **Tuesday, 7:09**

"Dad, you made breakfast!" Jean yelped, surprised, nearly jumping out of her skin when she groggily stumbled into the kitchen to find her father sliding pancakes, eggs, and bacon onto plates.

"And it's not even on fire!" Charles beamed at her, inordinately pleased with himself for this little accomplishment.

She rolled her eyes but grinned at him while filching a piece of bacon. Charles motioned at her to just take the whole plate, loaded down with pancakes, eggs and the alluring bacon. She did, sliding it and the coffee mug beside it across the counter to sit in front of her at the breakfast bar. "So, what's up? Why're you making breakfast?"

"Daddy made breakfast!" Ororo squealed for joy and ran over to hug Charles, who laughed and hugged her back before handing the little girl her own plate and a cup of orange juice. Burdened with her food, she staggered over to hop up beside her sister at the counter.

"Morning Jean!" she grinned, white hair flying in every direction as bedhead fought gravity and momentarily won.

"Morning, O," the elder Xavier daughter yawned, still not fully awake, "So, Dad, breakfast, why?"

Charles shrugged, "I can't occasionally do something nice for my family?"

Jean gave a skeptical snort and shot him a look that clearly said she wanted to know the story of his night in custody and wasn't going to rest until she got it but knew better than to ask when her little sister was in earshot. Charles simply raised a mild pair of eyebrows in return and she pulled a face at him and turned back to her pancakes and bacon.

Raven took the moment of calm to stagger into the kitchen, making grabby hands for the coffee pot. Charles handed her a full mug and a plate. She gave the food a slightly scandalized look, muttering "Breakfast…" like it was a suspicious substance, before groggily settling at the counter and tucking into the food with gusto.

"Did you have fun with your new friend last night?" Ororo asked and Charles and Raven nearly simultaneously choked on their coffee.

"Friend?" Charles managed to wheeze around the liquid caffeine trying to crawl into his lungs.

Ororo nodded, "The tall one at the party. The one you left with."

Charles blinked, once, twice, three times and tried to assemble a reply that was not unintelligible sputtering. Damn Moira for waking him up at 5am. If he'd had a few more hours of sleep he might have been able to compose a functional response.

"Yes Charles, tell us about your new friend?" Raven asked coyly and Charles did not throw a dishtowel at her because he was a mature adult who did not settle arguments by flinging linens.

"Detective Lehnsherr is working on a case and he had some questions for me," Charles tried to keep his words as ambiguous as possible but Ororo's eyes were shining with newborn fascination and Jean's were bright with wary concern.

"A mystery? Like Nancy Drew?" Ororo asked, planting her feet on the rungs of her barstool and leaning forward excitedly.

"Something like that. Darling, sit down, you'll tip over," Charles hedged.

"What kind of mystery?" Jean's eyes were narrowed.

"The mysterious kind," Charles said blandly, a twinkle in his eye. Jean sighed, indulgent and resigned to her father's evasiveness.

"Oh, Charles, I have something for you to share with tall, German and handsome," Raven cut in, a wicked gleam in her eye.

Charles gave her a stern look and she gave him a blinding grin, "Raven."

"Charles."

A long moment where Charles prodded at the edges of her thoughts and found nothing but mischief and a tenacious desire to help. She sensed him and her smile broadened and sharpened until all he felt was determinations. And mischief. That didn't seem like it was going away any time soon.

"Well, it's a good thing I was planning to go by the station and help out after the girls left for school," Charles broke the silence with forced pleasantry and Jean gave him a too-knowing look. She really was getting more skilled with her abilities by the day. Not that that little emotional exchange between him and Raven was particularly subtle.

"Shouldn't you be working on your book?" Jean said mildly, each word spaced out and emphasized oddly. He could sense her concern for him, her wish that he'd just stay away from whatever dangerous _thing_ he seemed to have going with the detective.

 _"Jean, darling,"_ Charles thought softly at her.

She blinked, surprised. They rarely talked like this. Her abilities were fairly new and slightly… raw wasn't quite the right term for it, but it was close enough. _"Dad?"_ she thought back.

 _"It's alright, it really is. There was some unpleasantness at first, but it's all sorted. These detectives, they're good people."_ He sent her a vague impression of each of the detectives from last night. Alex, sharp-tongued and earnest, Armando, clever and patient, Sean, laid-back and brighter than he knew, Hank, put-upon and too generous, and Erik. Complicated, belligerent, curious and confounding Erik.

Jean's lips pressed together, _"You're a little too fascinated by this Erik guy."_

Charles did not flush. He emphatically did not. _"He's a puzzle. And a good man."_

 _"And you never can resist those,"_ a soft mental sigh.

Charles raised his eyebrows at her, _"Really, darling? I think I'm very well behaved."_

 _"That's not the issue, Dad. I don't want you to put yourself in danger just because you're bored."_

Jean was too clever by half.

 _"Of course not, my dear."_

 _"I'll hold you to that, Dad."_

 _"Of course you will."_

"Hey," Raven snapped her fingers in his face; "Care to talk with your mouths like the rest of us? Some of us are feeling a little left out."

Charles smiled at her, "My apologies."

She sniffed and took a final gulp of coffee. "You kids ready for school?"

"Yep!" Ororo asserted cheerfully, "Jean helped my pick out my outfit."

"Well let Auntie Raven see," Raven encouraged, helping her off the stool and making appreciative noises as Ororo twirled, adding a few snowflakes for dramatic effect.

"No snowstorms in the house," Charles reminded his daughter absently, helping Jean gather the dishes as Raven, her blue skin dotted with a constellation of tiny snowflakes, complimented Ororo's clothing choices.

Ororo chirped an affirmative as Jean turned to him and said quietly, "You really will be careful, right?"

He squeezed her shoulder, "Yes. Always."

 **Tuesday, 8:27am**

"The victim was shot at point-blank range. Multiple defensive wounds imply that there was some sort of struggle beforehand. Mostly bruises, no cuts or contusions. The most probably scenario is that there was a one gun, either the victim's or her assailant's, whoever had it lost it, there was a struggle for the weapon and she was shot in the melee."

"Lovely use of the word 'melee', Hank," a _very_ familiar voice chimed in from the doorway and Erik could feel his headache kick up a notch.

" _Xavier_ ," he growled, "Get out."

Xavier made a dismissive sound, "You don't actually want me to leave -"

"- Oh yes I do -"

"- When I have some very useful information."

Erik glared at the writer. Behind him, the detective could practically sense Hank begin to slink away from the contest of wills. "Hank. Stay." Hank stayed.

"Now, Erik, you can't go treating your coworkers like puppies," Charles smiled charmingly, blue eyes crinkling slightly at the corners, "It's uncouth."

Goddammit.

"What 'useful information' do you have, Xavier? And if it's ridiculous I'm throwing you out."

"He's means that literally," Armando commented mildly from his seat at the table, case file open before him.

"Aw, are Mom and Dad fighting again?" Alex groaned as he rounded the corner, a cup of steaming coffee in hand.

" 'Mom and Dad'?" a new voice added and Erik kind of wanted to just face plant into a desk and stay there. He _did not need_ more people interfering in this case.

"Who are you?" he demanded and didn't bother to mute any of the hostility in his tone.

The curvy blonde woman who'd appeared beside Xavier draped an arm lazily over the writer's shoulder and said "Raven Xavier," in a deceptively cheery voice, "I hear you've met my brother."

"Unfortunately," Erik grit out as Alex began to explain his earlier comment with unfortunate gusto. Unfortunate because now Erik would have to kill him and make it look like an accident.

"Charles and Erik, Mom and Dad. Last night we discovered that the writer's the only one who can get the robot-man to go home without an hour-long shouting match and divine intervention. So they're Mom and Dad now."

Charles's pained expression probably matched Erik's. Except Erik was pretty sure his own was a bit more homicidal.

Raven smirked and let out a long, drawn-out "Hmmm," her gaze sliding over to eye her brother.

"Raven, stop it," he hissed at her and this was _fascinating._

"Can I go now?" Hank asked querulously from behind Erik.

"No, you weren't done." Erik said without turning around. Hank sighed dramatically.

"Xaviers, valuable information, speak."

"Erik, we're people, not Yorkies," Charles said patiently.

"Speak."

"Woof."

Erik did not gape at him so much as stare emphatically. "What?"

"Erik, I have a seven-year-old daughter. Until she outgrows sparkles and My Little Pony, I have no dignity to speak of. I will continue to bark at you until you treat me like a person and not an unruly dog."

"What do you have to share with us?" Erik gritted out through clenched teeth.

"Better."

Office supplies rose from Erik's desk to float in menacing orbit around him. Well, as menacing as paperclips could be. But hey, staplers were dangerous.

Xavier the Younger looked like she was about to choke on her tongue as she struggled in vain to avoid laughing. Finally she coughed and got herself under control enough to say, "I happen to have all of Charles' fan-mail from the last decade filed away and saved. I hear you're looking for a potential stalker? Chances are I've got him. Or her. You wouldn't believe the number of marriage proposals-"

The pained expression was back on Charles' face. "Raven, darling, stop."

"Anyway, I kept it all filed away in case anyone ever became a problem and we needed to take legal action." She gave her brother a smug look, almost like she was saying 'see, I'm clever when I try'. He gave her a fond smile in return. Erik studiously ignored the painful twist in his chest that suggested he might want to have Charles smile at him like that just once. Instead he focused on re-settling the office supplies

"Very well. Sean, I have a job for you."

"What?" Sean, who had been constructing a model of what might have been the tower of London out of the paperclips Erik had levitated. Apparently they were still magnetized. With a twitch of his eyebrow Erik demagnetized them and sent Sean's project toppling.

"Paying attention now?"

"Not cool, man."

Erik would re-magnetize them later for Sean to play with. When this case was less pressing. Sean didn't need to know that, though. "You, Alex and Ms. Xavier are going to go through Xavier's stalker-mail and flag anything potentially dangerous. Got it?"

Sean blinked, looked at Raven, turned bright red and nodded.

"Good, get to it. Now, Hank-" he almost said 'speak', but a glance at Charles out of the corner of his eye made him think better of it. "-continue."

 **Author's Note: As usual, a huge thank you to everyone who's read, followed, favorite or reviewed this story so far. I really appreciate hearing from every one of you!**

 **The chapter title is from the song 'Samson' by Regina Spektor.**


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